The return of censorship

For people who grew up in the West in the present century, censorship is almost an alien and antique concept.

Stuart Kells, The Library

The Library by Stuart Kells was published in 2017, when the above line from that book was mostly true. In just four years, however, censorship, broadly defined, has become commonplace. Comments outside the party line are now being routinely labeled as misinformation or disinformation and banned from Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. Donald Trump was banned from Twitter last year while he was still president of the United States. On Google, where in 2017 you could find just about anything, you may now be unable to find a full range of opinions (or even facts) about critical race theory, COVID vaccine, COVID treatments and other subjects.

One can argue, as I have myself, that true censorship is something done by the government, not private individuals or companies. Yet at present the tech companies are acting in step with the government in Washington, doing its bidding and enforcing its version of truth. Just this week the White House admitted it is instructing Facebook about what comments about the vaccine should be labeled as misinformation.

Banned Books Week, a left-leaning organization whose 2021 theme is "Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us," has historically considered as "banned" those books on school reading lists that are just objected to by parents, as if it wishes to censor the right of parents to object to books their own children are expected to read. One wonders whether conservative books that Amazon refuses to sell will be included on the 2021 list.

I have long maintained that everybody, or nearly everybody, favors censorship of some sort. It is just a matter of where one draws the line. It would be difficult to find anyone on either the right or the left who will admit to being against censoring child pornography.

Those on the right have through history been too quick to censor materials perceived as immoral or heretical. In 1972, Kells reports, a circuit court judge banned Slaughterhouse-Five from public schools for being depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar and anti-Christian. Those on the left are more likely to favor censorship of political and social ideas or even language they dislike. They are the ones who object to Huckleberry Finn for Mark Twain's use of the n-word. The recent destruction of statues across America looks like an attempt to censor history and culture.

One cannot turn back the clock or the calendar. Even so, 2017 sounds pretty good right now. If we cannot return there, perhaps we can at least return to the noble conviction that freedom of thought and freedom of expression are good ideas — for everyone.